


Fight, or Flight, or Freeze

by magikfanfic



Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 22:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: Another thing about him that surprises people: Chase Stein doesn’t really like holidays. Growing up they were always haphazard, dangerous times of the year.





	Fight, or Flight, or Freeze

**Author's Note:**

> Runaways Christmas fic. This is, again, a mishmash of TV and comic canon. This is not in the same AU as the ongoing series. This is just, basically, a one-shot drabble that got out of hand.

Another thing about him that surprises people: Chase Stein doesn’t really like holidays. Growing up they were always haphazard, dangerous times of the year. Whereas on a normal weekday, he could count on his father being busy with work, holidays offered an insecurity, a doubt. Where would his father be? What mood would he be in? What would he break, the dishes or something inside Chase, physical or emotional? The best ones, by far, were always the ones when Victor had to travel for something, somewhere–Chase stopped asking when he was seven because it didn’t matter where he was so much as it mattered that he was out of the house–and it was just him and his mom, using whatever holiday it might be to actually celebrate his father’s absence. 

Holidays, Christmas in particular, were always loaded, fraught with traps. Victor liked to buy him things he knew Chase didn’t want or like. Victor would buy him things he wanted him to be interested in and then wait for the inevitable way that Chase’s face would fall, always too expressive, never fully controlled by him, to berate him, to lash out and call him selfish, ungrateful, spoiled. A waste of space. A waste of time. A waste of the precious Stein genes. And Chase would hang his head (so that his face would not give him away even more) and clench his hands into fists on his knees and say nothing while his mother pointedly walked out of the room to check on what was cooking or powder her nose or be anywhere other than there, protecting him.

Holidays were a battleground in the Stein house. Chase still wears the wounds, thinks he can hear the canons go off when he starts awake on Christmas morning, heart pounding, covered in a cold sweat. He can hear the music through the walls, high, bright, festive, all silent nights and decked halls. It’s louder than the rush of blood in his ears as he fights to slow his breathing down, runs a hand through his hair, wild from tossing and turning. Chase has never dreamed of sugar plums only black eyes and a voice that gets so loud it drowns out the rest of the world. 

When the others mentioned putting together Christmas, Chase had just shrugged, hands in pockets, voicing neither assent nor dissent. Gert had, as politely as possible, reminded them that she was Jewish but followed it up with the fact that it didn’t matter to her what they did, not really, which was probably because of the way that Molly had perked up at the mention of Christmas. So it happened. He let it happen. All around him. A tree, lights, tinsel, stockings, and wrapped packages that started showing up from nowhere. They don’t really have money to buy presents so he’s not sure what’s happening unless people are just wrapping up random crap they’re finding in the rooms of their sunken dwelling, which is possible. Alex manages to hack their way into enough cash for food and clothing, but there’s not the budget for gifts. 

Chase doesn’t want anything anyway, wouldn’t be able to keep the trepidation off his face when tearing into the wrapping paper, wouldn’t want to hurt the feelings of anyone brave enough to give him something. It wouldn’t be their fault, and it wouldn’t be his, but the reaction, he thinks, would be enough to drive a wedge, to raise questions he doesn’t want to answer. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about what to get the others because he has, long and hard, on nights when he cannot sleep, which are plentiful, but it’s not in his power to do so, and he has seen, firsthand, how a moment of joy at giving can turn into a nightmare of consequence. It’s hard to live with. It’s hard to face again. Even though he knows none of them would react the way his father would, it’s hard. It’s not something he can just leave behind like his house and all his things. It’s burned into his skin and his mind and his soul, a brand as unforgiving as his last name, as his DNA. 

An afternoon spent at the mall when he was seven, still young enough to believe in the idea of Santa, still young enough for hope and wishes. His mother holding his hand, drifting through the crowds of people, so many of them stopping his mother to tell her what a darling little boy she had, and his mother smiling tightly, tightly, making sure he kept his jacket on because there were bruises down his arms from his father grabbing him. The Santa booth in the middle of the mall, and Chase begging to ask, willing to stand in the line for as long as it took.

“What do you want for Christmas, little boy?”

And the desire to say, “Not to be a Stein” held back in favor of asking for a basketball because what if. What if Santa was in league with his parents? What if Santa told on him? And worse, what if he asked and Santa couldn’t help?

Chase pushes out of the door and into the hallway, bleary, feeling disoriented and wrong, almost runs right into Gert who is aimlessly oddly right there, bright as ever with her fading purple hair and dark roots, big glasses not doing anything to hide her wide eyes, wearing a Hannukah sweater that is slightly too big such that it hangs over her hands, reaches almost to her knees, which are bare as though she is wearing the sweater as a dress. Like this, she looks safe, and Chase remembers a holiday spent with the Yorkes when his parents were both on a work trip. There were candles. There was singing. No one cried. No one screamed. He slept through the night.

Gert looks at him and her expression is open and worried, gentle, but he cannot stop the way he flinches when she reaches out to him. She sees it and stops, hand in midair for a moment before she lowers it back to her side. “Chase, are you okay? You look.” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to. 

He can imagine what he looks like, flushed, sweating, caught in a perpetual war between fight, flight, and freeze. The latter used to win the most. He hated it. Still hates it, that feeling of powerlessness, that inability to act. He promises himself, not for the first time, that he will not freeze when the others need him, though he cannot say the same for himself, alone.

“Just a bad dream,” he says because she’s still standing there, looking at him, assessing him the way she does everyone, studying him. Chase is sure that she is cataloging flaws, wishes he knew a way to distract her because he would rather not be an insect on a pin, squirming, for Gert to see. Once you lose so much face, it’s impossible to get it back, and he. He would like for Gert to think he is something more than nothing.

“I don’t like Christmas,” he says, unbidden, unprompted. It just falls out of his mouth, flat. 

“I remember,” Gert’s voice is gentle, the voice he has heard her use to comfort Molly, and she pushes her glasses up, twists her hands together, fidgets with her sweater, all those tiny little motions that are Gert’s tells when she is anxious.

Any other time, Chase would let them go, but he is already so off-center, so frayed, that he cannot take the motion, and he reaches to catch them. Gert’s hands are surprisingly soft for someone who seems to be attempting to tear down society on her own. Once he has them, she does not struggle, does not try to take them back, lets him hold them. 

He doesn’t remember telling Gert that he doesn’t like Christmas but also cannot find the voice to ask her for details, just looks at her hands in his. They are small, but he knows how strong they are because this is Gert. 

“Do you remember that year you stayed with us during Hannukah?” 

Chase nods.

“You told me then. That you didn’t like Christmas.”

He doesn’t remember that part of it but then sometimes Chase’s memory is full of blank spots that he doesn’t attempt to uncover because he’s afraid of what might be lurking underneath.

“You didn’t say anything when the others suggested it. I thought maybe you had changed your mind. If I’d thought it would bother you, I would have suggested we skip it.”

“No, it’s. It’s fine. That would have been unnecessary.” And too much. Too much trouble to go to for his comfort. No sense making the rest of them suffer just to put him at ease. They’ve been through so much this year, they deserve something. They deserve Christmas even if it does make his blood run cold.

Gert sighs like he has asked her to move the moon, but he doesn’t ask why she’s perturbed. Chase has learned over the years that those kinds of questions will be answered at length, and he doesn’t really have the wherewithal to listen to it properly right now. 

“If I remember correctly,” she takes a step towards him, careful, and she has not taken her hands back from where they remain in his, where he is running his own fingers down the lengths of hers because it is soothing, “you liked the singing.”

Chase blinks at her, confused, and he can only imagine how dumb he probably looks in this moment, how unlike anything she’d like. 

“When you were at our house during Hannukah. You liked the singing.”

“I liked you singing.” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it, this bold, brash truth. Fight, or flight, or freeze. This is none of those. This is Chase undone by truth and honesty and the softness that is Gert when she allows herself to stop fighting the world.

She blushes, and he smiles, just a little because it makes her glow. “Thanks,” she says, though it is hesitant, and he wonders if part of her thinks he is joking.

He understands why she would think that, but he is never joking when he compliments her even when he does it poorly.

“Anyway, I could, um, teach you a song. If you wanted.”

“I don’t sing very well.” He does, in fact, sing extremely poorly, which Gert already knows.

“That’s okay.” Said with enough sincerity that he believes it. “I just thought you might like it.”

What he likes is the feel of her close, the warmth of her hands in his, the way her eyes are concerned. What is likes is her. There. With him. What do you want for Christmas, Chase? he asks himself, and the answer is clear, the answer is obvious. He wants someone who cares about him. He wants someone who gives a shit. 

He wants her.

What he wants is, again, something out of his league, something that cannot be bought or wrapped or exchanged. Something that cannot be wished into being like asking for his father to be nicer or better or kind. What he wants is something he doesn’t understand how to get, something he probably doesn’t deserve. Fight, or flight, or freeze. Chase Stein is so often frozen right down to the core of himself that he sometimes wonders whether anything is there to offer except ice.

If he was anything other than a coward, maybe he would say at least one of these things to her, but he is a coward so he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Okay. Teach me a song.”

Gert sings, Chase attempts to. Somewhere during it all, they end up sitting on the floor of the hallway, across from each other, and he is still holding her hands. Half the time, he just listens to her, watches her, and Gert pretends not to notice, but he notices it every time her voice shakes or her cheeks get warm or her hands twitch a little in his, anxious, which makes him hold them tighter, shift closer to her. They are knee to knee, but he keeps leaning forward, closer, as though he can disappear into the song, into the way her voice lilts up, the loveliness of it. He has missed this, her voice like this instead of biting, tossing quips. He loves those, too, but this is something else, so much brighter, the softer side of the girl he has known forever. 

“Maybe next year, we can celebrate Hannukah instead,” he says when she stops singing, and he has given up the pretense of trying to. He doesn’t even question why he assumes there will be a next year. He needs there to be a next year. He needs this family. Even if they aren’t in this slowly sinking mansion in the ground, he needs them all, especially Gert soft and steel at the same time, singing as easily as she mocks.

“That might be a hard sell. But,” she twines her fingers through his, not for the first time, hopefully not for the last, “we could do both.”

Chase thinks about giving up Christmas, about giving up all the other holidays that are like millstones around his neck, hairshirts on his back. He wonders about replacing them with other things, if it would even make a difference. “I don’t like Christmas,” he says, the words small, his voice small, the way he feels, small, and young and waiting for something terrible. Most children waited for Santa, presents, reindeer. Chase waited for yelling, breaking, pain, disappointment.

“I know.” When she lets go of his hand and reaches out to touch his cheek, he does not flinch away. He doesn’t realize that he’s crying until she brushes the tears away. “They’ve ruined a lot of things. It’s okay.”

Chase wonders what their parents have ruined for Gert, how he can set it right because he wants to. “Thanks. For this.” His voice sounds wet and tight, it reminds him of his mother’s fake smiles and her pretense that they were happy, all of it exhausting.

Her hand on his face has not moved; it is warm. Chase thinks it might be warm enough to soak through to those cold, frozen parts of him that will not move anymore. “No big deal,” she says casually as though she has given him a dollar instead of sitting in the hall with him, singing to him, holding his hands, calming him down little by little so that he feels more like himself now, less like a shaking child. If it weren’t for the way her voice hitches a little at the end, he would almost believe her. But her eyes on his face are searching as he draws closer, and her gaze lingers on his lips more than once before skating back up to meet his own. 

Maybe it is just her way of memorizing and taking in everything. Maybe it is something else. He wants it to be something else. “No, Gert, it’s.” He swallows. “It’s more than you think it is. It means a lot. It means.” He doesn’t know how to broach the subject more fully, isn’t sure about spilling all the years of secrets, pulling out the scars and receipts to show her. Gert is strong, yes, but is she strong enough for this? He doesn’t know. 

“People get sad around the holidays. It’s a statistical fact. There have been multiple studies done on the subject.”

She’s not done talking, he can tell by the way she tilts her head that she is about to launch into a diatribe complete with sources, and it’s rude to cut her off, but she’s beautiful and he kisses her. There’s a moment when she freezes and he thinks this is it, the universe will end. Gert will hate him, and he will become ice and shatter and blow away. Then she kisses him back, and everything inside of him melts in the face of the wave of heat.

This is another thing about him that surprises people, that surprises even himself when it blooms out in full force at the touch of her lips: Chase Stein is in love with Gert Yorkes.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come find me on my [Tumblr](http://sarkastically.tumblr.com/).


End file.
